Nancy > Nancy's Quotes

“But luxury has never appealed to me, I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands.”
― Daphne du Maurier

“But what made It bearable were the friendships, of course, the camaraderie and the music and the Shakespeare, the moments of transcendent beauty and joy when it didn't matter who'd used the last of the rosin on their bow or who anyone had slept with, although someone - probably Sayid - had written "Sartre: Hell is other people" in pen inside one of the caravans, and someone else had scratched out "other people' and substituted "flutes".”
― Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
― Mark Twain

“Even if the whole world was throwing rocks at you, if you had your mother at your back, you’d be okay. Some deep-rooted part of you would know you were loved. That you deserved to be loved. —Jojo Moyes, One Plus One”
― Jacqueline Winspear, Journey to Munich

“I tend to be a real optimist because I just find that pessimism is an indulgence and despair is kind of an insult to the imagination. And you know my father always said just do what you need to do and then ask whether it was possible or permissible.”
― Wade Davis

“He had already learned to read, but now he learned the pleasure of stories which is like no other pleasure—the experience of slipping sideways into another world and living there for as long as you want to.”
― M.R. Carey, The Boy on the Bridge

“People are used to hearing a certain kind of narrative – the world is unfair, racist, biased, and the primary concern we should have is that these are systems that oppress us – systemic racism, sexism, and so on. It’s amazing how much this passes as a truth.” Jamil Jivani”
― Jamil Jivani, Why Young Men: Rage, Race and the Crisis of Identity

“I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.”
― Maya Angelou

“Luxury is best appreciated in small portions. When it becomes routine it loses its allure.”
― Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir

“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
― Aeschylus

“The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.”
― Mary Oliver

“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”
― Toni Morrison

“Sometimes the past comes up on us like a ghost. Sometimes life is like a haunted house. But there’s no way to leave. You just have to make your peace with the ghosts.”
― Sara Gran, The Infinite Blacktop

“Never trust someone who tells good stories, not until you know why they're doing it.”
― C.A. Fletcher, A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World

“The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man.”
― T.S. Eliot

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“The trouble with humanity is that it forgets to read the minutes of the last meeting.”
― Richard weaver

“If everyone just sweeps outside their door, the whole village will be clean,” Merkel said sometimes, quoting Goethe.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“Threats are the last resort of a man with no vocabulary.”
― Tamora Pierce, Lady Knight

“May all hanging judges be judged themselves at last.”
― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse